This Week: Easter 5B
Gospel: John 15:1-8
Part of our challenge this week is in dealing with a beautiful image that contains within in it some dark notes.
Do we revel in the beauty of the vine image, with God’s glorious creation of fruit in us? Or do we stress about the the pruning and what it means to have Jesus divide and separate—an image that feels at least slightly hypocritical since we’re not supposed to do that.
I also suspect that there is a large portion of people who read this text without this trouble at all. That they might be free to praise God in all of that glory and feel confident that they themselves are not on the short end of the divine pruning shears. And these are, perhaps unsurpisngly, just as confident that many of us are going to burn.
The thing about this decidedly difficult image is that it attempts to keep our cosmic role clear—but it is our obsession with assuring our own place in it that fails us.
We’re already doing the work.
I’m reminded of a passage in the Synoptic gospels where Jesus is teaching the disciples about giving up their stuff, following him, and being generous in the way of Christ. And Peter’s response is something I hear from all sorts of people today: “It’s too hard to do!”
And if this were a movie, we’d just be watching Jesus stare, dumbfounded—at a guy who gave up his stuff, is following Jesus, and is being generous in the way of Christ saying “who can do that?”
Pete! You are. (Dumbass)
There’s something telling about that story. Because we even read the situation like Peter does! We run around going, Oh man, how can we possibly do this whole “follow Jesus” thing. It is so hard. While we’re doing it. And reading about a guy saying the same thing and missing the self-awareness part of it.
Many of us are already doing the work. And not giving ourselves enough credit.
Our obsession with certainty drives us mad.
And we often act like it.
We’re obsessed with being certain that we’re doing the right thing. And Jesus keeps telling us what the right thing is, how to do it, when to do it, and that we ought to do it. Then, when we do it, we’re like, “Is this it, Jesus? Tell me it’s it!”
I bet Jesus was tired of micromanaging his disciples then. I can’t even begin to imagine how over us he would be by now.
Yeah, Dude, you’re doing it right. (For the 82nd time this month…)
But the bigger problem is that it takes our focus from where Jesus is trying to get us to look.
To hazard a sports metaphor: imagine you’re a wide receiver and after every snap, you run your route. Reliably. You work hard, knowing where to be, making the plays you’re supposed to make.
Now imagine that after every play, you are so focused on your routes, you lose track of the game, the score, even what’s happening. And each time you ask the coach, am I running the routes right? Gee, I hope I’m running my routes. Then the ball comes to you and you don’t try to catch it because, well, you’re focused on your routes. On the next play, you don’t pick up a block. And so on.
We make the nature of all things into “what am I supposed to be doing here?”
Is the fruit showing up?
The question isn’t whether you’re any good at being a disciple. It’s about the fruit.
Your part isn’t to make the fruit. Nor is it to do things “right.”
Look for the fruit. If its there, praise God. If not, keep looking.
He didn’t say the absence of fruit is because you screwed up. But by missing the point, you’re probably screwing up!
A more hospitable environment
There isn’t “right,” but there is something here about being hospitable. About being a good host for the grace of God. That good fruit will grow through you.
Honestly, I can’t use the word hospitable without thinking of the Friends episode where Monica and Chandler find out that they are both contributing to their fertility problem. The doctor tells Monica that she has an “inhospitable environment”.
This, of course, isn’t something she can do anything about. But I think it helps temper the action-centric focus we might have about our place in Jesus’s kingdom-building.
In the same way Monica can’t do anything to make her body different, there isn’t inherently a “right way” to “fix” yourself to make it so God will bother to make the fruit grow.
So how then might we approach the idea of being host to the grace of God budding in our world without obsessing about getting it “right”? Right about ourselves being perfect—or worse, one another. Nothing is more inhospitable than seeking to point out the speck in other eyes.
Now I don’t have an obvious and perfect vision for this, but it does seem a little more like letting go of process. And a little more compassion for speculation.
What if we don’t see growth?
This is, perhaps, the most chilling part of the equation for Christians who do their best to “let go and let God.” Or those who struggle to understand how they are supposed to understand the grace of God as something working through us. Like, how are we supposed to know? What are the measurables?
This, of course, is a problem. And has been throughout history. Because we make things like butts in pews, increased income, and opportunities to speak to big audiences are measurable examples of fruit. So therefore, what do we make of decline? That response seems just as obvious.
But neither assessment shows much fidelity to the gospel itself. It is convenient to measure attendance and pledging like the fruits when these things are growing. But when economies and populations decline, does that mean God is being stingy?
Because if God is growing that former fruit, it isn’t you that’s reducing it now! But that is never how we talk about it.
It isn’t just the prosperity gospel, with its mockery of grace. It is fundamental evangelicalism that does this too. But Catholics and the Mainline aren’t immune. Our obsession with “right” drives the idea that we must be “wrong” about everything.
We celebrate the people who help God’s grace to grow and demonize the people who seem to prevent growth. But none of this gives authority to God to provide the growth.
So our brains seesaw back to fixing our hospitable environment. Because it is at least something we can do.
I’m the problem. It’s me.
When Taylor Swift introduced this clever line in “Anti-Hero,” we were able to put a funny spin on self-sabotage. But my favorite part about it is that there is an incredible shift that comes from self-awareness.
We open ourselves up.
Not just to the possibility that we are, in fact, the problem. But to a whole other way of seeing things.
And that’s what is missing from our sense of God’s grace.
If God is responsible, then we aren’t. Full stop.
And also there is work for us. We aren’t making the grace not happen because we’re wrong. But often we do get in the way!
There are many things we can hang decline in the church on. But it isn’t that the preacher says You know, Jesus says maybe not horde so much wealth, you guys!
Think back to what we started with:
Obsession.
Our obsession with right, perfection, being total jerkwads to each other. If anything stops the grace from showing up, it’s that junk. Why? Because we become people that other people don’t want to hang out with.
And what does Jesus actually talk about in this gospel passage? Abiding with him. Hanging out. Being with someone who enjoys our company.
That is something we all can work on.